West List Co. is a leader in providing specialty lists for Direct Marketers looking to reach business professionals in North America. List Broker - List Manager - List Owner

Monday, March 17, 2014

TSN and Bell Media - BarDown

Bell Media and TSN yesterday
launched BarDown, a new sports and pop culture
site to feature original video, viral content and features from “young writers
and sports fans.” It’s positioned as a visual and light-hearted
complement to the traditional news, stats and analysis sports coverage TSN is
known for. Dave Krikst will serve as managing editor, with Cabbie Richards,
Jeff O’Neill and Mike Gallay listed among contributors.

As NHL player Paul “BizNasty”
Bissonnette explains in an introductory video, the term “bar down” refers to a
hockey goal scored on the top portion of the net, behind the crossbar, where
the goaltender usually leaves their water bottle. Bissonnette will be featured
in a regular series called BizNasty Hockey Lingo.

Nathalie Cook, VP integrated
marketing and partnerships, TSN, tells MiC that the site was born out of
a combination of the need for a new outlet for personality-driven content that
didn’t fit TSN’s hard news approach and advertisers increasingly approaching
the network with new content proposals and non-traditional advertising ideas.

“We had a more journalistic
approach to TSN.ca as a place where people go for sports news, but what we saw
between our Twitter, Facebook and social media was the level of engagement we
had on some of the more viral types of sports content, the melding of sports
and pop culture. TSN.ca wasn’t always the best place for that content to
reside.”

Coca-Cola has signed on as sponsor,
activating with display ads and video pre-roll for Sprite and a home for new
installments of Moment Zero, the sponsored video series for Coke Zero
featuring Steve Stamkos and TSN personality James Duthie that has previously
been hosted on TSN’s YouTube page and as a 30-second TV spot.

Cook says BarDown was launched with
Coke Zero and Sprite as sole sponsors because it met the needs of the existing
advertising partnership between TSN and Coca-Cola, but she adds that it’s not
an exclusive deal and there will be opportunities for other brands to get
involved with the site. “The goal is not for this to be something that is
completely owned by these brands for the long term, but it was certainly a goal
to launch together,” she says. “We will welcome all partners.”

She says that the audience will
likely align with TSN’s social media following, which skews younger than TSN’s
overall audience, but that TSN will wait and see what kind of audience is
actually attracted to the content. Despite early comparisons to ESPN’s Grantland, Cook says
the tone of BarDown will more closely resemble Gawker or BuzzFeed than Bill
Simmon’s longform sports and pop culture journalism hub.